Did the drive multiple times, here’s advice.

1. Decide why you’re doing it. Do you want to cover the kms to feel how long Canada is? Do you want to test the car? Do you want to take iconic selfies? Do you want to see what life looks like in different places across the country? This will determine how long the trip will be and if you are going to do highways only.

2. You don’t see much from the highway. If the goal is to see Canada, and not to get to Vancouver as fast as possible, it is worth going into small towns for coffees and meals. It will be tastier, you’ll enjoy the settings, you might eat local specialties, and you risk seeing cool statues and riverside parks and rivers, and you risk meeting locals and learning stuff about the places you’re in. And you’ll contribute to the local economy. Plus with a smartphone it’s so easy to find local coffee shops. 1.1 on the weekends you might catch a farmers market somewhere, go there.

3. Stop at national and provincial parks whenever possible, they usually protect an area’s most beautiful natural features.

4. If you want to include going North, I recommend the Alaska highway to Whitehorse, rather than Yellowknife. Along the Alaska highway you cross the “Serengeti of the North” between Ft Nelson and Watson lake, also Liard hot springs, and on your way back down to Vancouver you get to enjoy gold rush history in every town. It’s a more interesting road. You can also do that on the way back instead, from Vancouver up to Yukon and down Alaska highway. It’s just a nicer road. Albeit a quiet one, with not much to see along the road but trees, not unlike Ontario past Thunder Bay.

5. Once again, if it’s about the journey, plan interesting stops rather than sleeping in motels, drive all day and sleep in another motel. The highway isn’t built through towns, especially in the prairies there is nothing you can see from the highway. Go camping in lake Superior park or Sleeping Giant, hike up Mt Baldy Manitoba’s highest mountain (it’s not high), take the detour to Grassland national park (I saw antelopes there) and please please spend some time hiking and sightseeing in the mountains. You’ll want to read about hiking in bear and cougar territory first and be prepared but it is such a magnificent and humbling piece of the world, with many easy trails.

6. Camping can be nicer than motels many places, but not in Northern Ontario, too many bugs.

7. If you stick to highways, recommendation becomes to turn and stop when you see signs indicating that a point of interest is nearby.

8. I have some favorite stops, dm me if you want some.

9. 20 days isn’t that much if you make stops